Monday was a project day, so I just worked on my special event and caught up on some rotation evaluations. I was pretty proud of myself because my finalized menu was due on Thursday, three weeks in advance, and I turned it in TODAY! I've been working on picking camping themed items that are also feasible to make in a quantity food setting. Important considerations include ingredients available, prep time and materials needed, and staffing the day of the event. I had to balance all of these alongside the nutritional and dietary aspects of the menu. The next step is precosting the menu to make sure our cost per person is between $2-3. This is the way businesses balance food costs and meet profit margins. Now that the menu is done, I can really focus on decorations and games, too!
I spent an hour and a half on yoga and some lifting today, too (chest day, woot WOOT!). Tonight was a big night for the sportsball folks of Cedar Falls: it was the Blackhawks vs Lightning hockey game! I made some orange blueberry muffins for my hockey-mad coworkers and watched the last half of the game in their enthusiastic company. In a flurry of sticks and kneepads, the Blackhawks won the Stanley cup, resulting in lots of cheers and a fair bit of jumping off of couches and tables from my coworkers.
Everyone was still celebrating their team's victory on Tuesday when I began my rotations at Maucker Union's dining facility, Prexy's. I took the morning shift at Chat's, the coffee and pastry venue. This was a bold move considering I run on natural effervescence, not coffee. When I tied my navy apron around my waist, I couldn't differentiate between a cappuccino and a capuchin. When I finished, my apron felt less like protection from espresso splashes and more like a badge of honor signifying my budding competence. I also concluded that the arrogance coffee snobs display is completely unfounded unless they prefer a specific type of bean. Every single drink is literally espresso and milk with flavors added in. Cappuccinos just have more air incorporated into the milk. A macchiato is just a flavored latte. I'll stick to my H2O, neither shaken nor stirred, thank you. Chats also serves Freshens smoothies, so I got to practice measuring and serving franchised foods. It is rewarding to me to present a product to a customer knowing that I've upheld the quality standards of the franchise.
My coffee game was strong after handling the morning coffee rush, so management decided to throw me a curve ball: lunch at the Wok! The venue's specialty should be apparent, so I'll cut to the chase: I grilled stir fry on the Mongolian grill! Picture a giant, flat metal disk heated to sizzling temperatures. Picture dumping the customer's bowl of chosen veggies and protein onto the grill and watching the steam rise, hearing the searing sounds as moisture is superheated inside the foods. Picture me wielding two metal spatulas the length of my forearms and mixing, chopping, and flipping the stir fry ingredients to ensure full cooking of raw proteins and a perfect veggie-meat ratio. Picture me using these spatulas to masterfully transfer the stir fry from the grill to the customer's plate in one fell scrape across the grill (I'm not saying that's exactly what happened, but just picture it. It's much more appealing than the reality, which was me desperately trying not to drop all the food into the grease catching tray underneath the grill. I did get the hang of it eventually, but perhaps "masterful" isn't the best adverb). Now, picture the cleaning process: pouring cold water and degreaser onto the grill as it steams and hisses, scraping it to remove all the charcoal-y food bits, and feeling a sense of supreme accomplishment when it dries and is one uniform color again.
Wednesday was my second and last day at Prexy's. I helped with the lunch rush after my John Maxwell class with Mike. This time, I left the Mongolian grill to the experts and immersed myself in the atmosphere of Erbert and Gerbert's Sandwich Shoppe, a new franchise Prexy's just opened in the spring. The company has specific instructions for cutting the sandwich bread, the order the sandwich fillings go in, the wrapping process, and even the way the sandwich wrapper calls out the names on meal tickets (sandwich name, modifications, customer name, like so: "I have a Haley's Comet, no mayo, on white for Rebecca!"). This is the most specific franchise I've ever worked in that has existed within a separate food service entity like Prexy's, and I enjoyed the company's commitment to their brand alongside the mutual commitment of Prexy's management to maintaining the quality of the E&G image. I spent the afternoon in Essentials, the Union commodity shop. The manager and I discussed how product mix is determined, their university apparel partnership with the local University bookstore, and different accounting and clerical aspects of managing a food and commodity business. I even got to help count out cash from the Chats register using a machine that counts money by weighing it! Technology is crazy!
Wednesday night saw me with Natalie at the Cedar Falls salsa dancing club dance they have every Wednesday night. It had been a while since I danced exclusively salsa, but it came back to me pretty quickly and I had a ton of fun!
Thursday was spent much like this Monday, organizing my ideas for my event and finishing some little projects from my different rotations. However, I organized a movie night with my Piazza coworkers to see the new Jurassic World movie in the evening. It was awesome, of course! I met Natalie and her friend, Hannah, at one of the bars on the Hill afterwards, and who did we end up befriending there but a group of Colombians who were completing a summer class for their MS degrees in engineering technology management! Naturally, we invited them to attend the next week's salsa dancing party. We were not about to miss out on an opportunity to Latin dance with actual Latinos!
Another project day on Friday left room for lunch with Natalie and the Colombians, a break to walk around the art show that was set up on UNI's beautiful northern lawns, a chance to walk onto the Panther football field, running and yoga, and a free movie at one of the local parks with Natalie and the Colombians. There's nothing more perfect than watching The Sandlot on a giant inflatable screen in the park with popcorn and friends! I got a lot done regarding event decorations today. Let's just say there will be fake bugs, a giant stuffed bear, a guess-how-many-mini-marshmallows-in-the-jar game with said stuffed bear as the prize, and a tent set up in the middle of the dining center. Get pumped, people!
 |
| Go Pokes on the Panther field! |
No comments:
Post a Comment